Since that going down of the American Timber-ship on one of the banks of the Solway under my window, I do not remember that
you have heard a word of me. I only added that the men were all saved, and the beach all in agitation, certain women not far from
hysterics;—and there ended. I did design to send you some announcement of our return hither; but fear there is no chance that
I did it! About ten days ago the Signor Gambardella arrived with a Note and Books from you:1 and here now is your Letter of October 30th; which, arriving at a moment when I have a little leisure, draws forth an answer almost instantly.

The Signor Gambardella, whom we are to see a second time tonight or tomorrow, amuses and interests us not a little. His face
is the very image of the Classic God Pan's; with horns and cloven feet we feel that he would make a perfect woodgod;—really
some of Poussin's Satyrs are almost portraits of this brave Gambardella.2 I will warrant him a right glowing man of Southern-Italian vitality,—full of laughter, wild insight, caricature, and every
sort of energy and joyous savagery: a most profitable element to get introduced (in moderate quantity), I should say, into
the general current of your Puritan blood over in New England there! Gambardella has behaved with magnanimity in that matter
of the Portrait: I have already sat, to men in the like case, some four times, and G. knows it is a dreadful weariness; I
directed him, accordingly, to my last Painter one Lawrence a man of real parts, whom I wished G. to know,—and whom I wished
to know G. withal, that he might tell me whether there was any probability of a good picture by him in case one did decide on encountering the weariness[.] Well; G. returns with a magnanimous report that Lawrence's picture3 far transcends any capability of his; that whoever in America or elsewhere will have a likeness of the said individual must
apply to Lawrence not to Gambardella,—which latter artist heroically throws down his brush, and says, Be it far from me! The
brave Gambardella: if I can get him this night to dilate a little farther on his Visit to the Community of Shakers,4 and the things he saw and felt there, it will be a most true benefit to me. Inextinguishable laughter seemed to me to lie
in Gambardella's vision of that Phenomenon,—the sight and the seer: but we broke out too loud all at once, and he was afraid
to continue.— — Alas, there is almost no laughter going in the world at present. True laughter is as rare as any other truth,—the
sham of it frequent and detestable like all other shams. I know nothing wholesomer; but it is rarer even than Christmas, which
comes but once a year, and does always come once.

Your satisfactions, and reflexions, at sight of your English Book are such as I too am very thankful for.5 I understand them well. May worse guest never visit the Drawing-room at Concord than that bound Book. Tell the good Wife
to rejoice in it: she has all the pleasure;—to her poor Husband it will be increase of pain withal: nay let us call it increase
of valiant labour and endeavour; no evil for a man, if he be fit for it! A man must learn to digest praise too and not be
poisoned with it: some of it is wholesome to the system under certain circumstances; the most of it a healthy system will learn by and by to throw into the
slop-bason, harmlessly, without any trial to digest it. A Thinker, I take it, in the long-run finds that essentially he must ever be and continue alone;—alone: “silent, rest over him the stars, and under him the graves!”6 The clatter of the world, be it a friendly be it a hostile world, shall not intermeddle with him much.——— The Book of Essays,
however, does decidedly “speak [to] England,” in its way, in these months; and even makes what one may call a kind of appropriate “sensation” here. Reviews of
it are many, in all notes of the gamut;—of small value mostly; as you might see by the two Newspaper specimens I sent you (Did you get these two Newspapers?).
The worst enemy admits that there are piercing radiances of perverse insight in it; the highest friends, some few, go to a
very high point indeed. Newspapers are busy with extracts;—much complaining that it is “abstruse,” neological, hard to get
the meaning of. All which is very proper. Still better,—tho' poor Fraser, alas is dead (poor Fraser!), and no help could come
from industries of the Bookshop, and Books indeed it seems were never selling worse than of late months—I learn that the “sale
of the Essays goes very steadily forward,” and will wind itself handsomely up in due time, we may believe! So Emerson henceforth
has a real Public in Old England as well as New. And finally my Friend, do not disturb yourself about turning better &c &c; write as it is given you, and not till it be given you, and never mind it a whit.

The new Adelphi piece seems to me, as a piece of composition, the best written of them all.7 People cry over it: “Whitherward? What, What?” In fact I do again desiderate some concretion of these beautiful abstracta. It seems to me they will never be right otherwise; that otherwise they are but as prophecies yet, not fulfilments. The Dial too, it is all spirit-like, aeriform, aurora-borealis like. Will no angel body himself out of that; no stalwart Yankee man, with colour in the cheeks of him, and a coat on his back! These things I say: and yet, very true, you alone can decide what practical meaning is in them. Write you always, as it is given you, be it in the solid, in the aeriform, or whatsoever way. There is no other rule given among men.——— I have sent the criticism
on Landor to an Editorial Friend of L's;8 by whom I expect it will be put into the Newspapers here for the benefit of Walter Savage; he is not often so well praised
among us, and deserves a little good praise. (Turn back)9

You propose again to send me monies,—surprising man!10 I am glad also to hear that beggarly misprinted F. Rn is nearly out among you. I only hope farther your Booksellers will have an eye on that rascal Appleton, and not let him reprint, and deface, if more copies of the Book turn out to be wanted. Adieu, dear E. Good speed to you at Boston and in all true things. I hope to write soon again. Yours ever

1. For the books, see TC to JF, [ca. 12 Nov.]. Emerson had written, 14 Oct.: “Mr Gambardella, a native of Italy, whence his liberal political opinions drove him to this country some years ago desires
to see you during his visit to England whither the love of painting and of pictures draws him. He pleases himself and his
friends with the purpose … of sending us back some day an effigy of yourself. Mr Gambardella who is only recently known to
me is esteemed & beloved by good persons, my friends: and beyond our interest in him, you see, has contrived to give us all
a personal interest in his acquaintance with you.” Spiridione Gambardella, b. Naples, originally an operatic tenor, become
a portrait painter in New York and Boston, 1835–40, before coming to Britain. He exhibited at the Royal Acad. and the British Inst., 1842–52, and apparently at Liverpool. His attempt to paint TC was unsuccessful. He painted JWC, 1843, and Jeannie and John Welsh.

2. Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), French historical and landscape painter. Antonio Gallenga, another Italian refugee, described Gambardella as “in the prime
of youth … a tall and elegant figure, fine Grecian features, and wonderful animal spirits; withal a great versatility of talent
which enabled him to take up anything he had a fancy to and become familiar with subjects from which his utter want of elementary
studies might be expected to have utterly debarred him. It is thus he dabbled, not without success, in astronomy” (M. C. Wicks,
Italian Exiles in London [Manchester, 1937] 180).

4. Probably the community at Harvard, Mass., one of the sights of Concord. They were a celibate and communistic sect, popularly
named for the dancing that was part of their worship, originating in England, 1747, reaching the U.S., 1774.

5. Emerson had written on receiving the British edn. of his Essays with TC's pref., 30 Oct.: “It seems I am to speak in England—great England—fortified by the good word of one whose word is fame. Well it is a lasting
joy to be indebted to the wise & generous; and I am well content that my little boat should swim, whilst it can, beside your
great galleys. Nor will I allow my discontent with the great faults of the book—which the rich English dress cannot hide,—to
spoil my joy in this fine little romance of friendship & hope. I am determined … to send you something better another day.”
Slater points out that it was rumored in 1842 that Emerson “did not like the patronizing strain of Carlyle's preface to his volume of essays” (Slater, CEC 308).

10. Emerson wrote, 30 Oct.: “When I was in Boston I saw the booksellers. … This time, Little & Brown render as their credit account to T.C. $366.00
(I think it was) payable in three months from 1 October. They had sold all the London ‘French Revolutions’ but fifteen copies. May we all live until 1 October! J. Munroe & Co acknowledge about $180.00 due and now rightfully payable to T.C., but, unhappily, not yet paid. By the help
of brokers, I will send that sum more or less in some English Currency, by the next steamship, which sails in about a fortnight.”